Experts see no devaluation> Bankers reassure Fairfield residents concerned by cancer cluster

loading...

FAIRFIELD — Six days after several residents voiced fears that property values might plunge, bankers and real estate appraisers said Tuesday they have found no cause for alarm.

The state’s finding of a brain cancer cluster among young adults isn’t cause enough to devalue homes or deny loans, they told Fairfield officials. They said they are likely to conduct business as usual until experts can show that something is making people sick.

“As a broker, I’m not going to blackball Fairfield,” said Philip Roy, a Fairfield resident and regional broker for Massachusetts-based Forward Financial Services.

“The banks deal with facts, not emotion,” he said. “The last thing a bank is going to do is open itself up to a lawsuit, based on emotion.”

Town Manager Terry York had called Tuesday’s meeting to try to calm fears.

State public health officials announced last month they have found a cluster of as many as a half-dozen cases of brain cancer in Fairfield. Among people 15 to 44 years old, experts said, the rate is five times the state average.

Residents have demanded answers, but the experts have cautioned that much more study must be done.

Last week, many of the 50 people who packed a Town Council meeting said they worry that home values will plummet as long as questions remain.

One couple said they had difficulty convincing a bank to refinance their home, although the deal eventually went through. Other residents said they fear having to take losses of as much as $30,000.

Even so, the dozen financial professionals who met with York and Councilor Bill Bois said they have encountered few problems.

“I certainly can’t say there has been a measurable decline,” said Vernon Ziegler, a Waterville appraiser whose clients include several banks and credit unions.

“I haven’t had anyone say, `Don’t go out there. Don’t look at that house,’ ” he said later. “None of the lenders I work for have denied a loan based on this cancer cluster or what’s going on out there.”

The state Bureau of Health is investigating illnesses in a part of town known as Fairfield Center that include brain cancer. With the recent finding of a cluster, the agency now is planning an extensive survey to find out what the people who are sick might have in common.

Meanwhile, the Department of Environmental Protection is trying to determine if pollution from a former dump for paper mill waste is harming the area.

The DEP is testing soil and water samples from the closed landfill, off state Route 104, where the Central Maine Disposal Corp. dumped boiler ash and other waste from two regional paper mills in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Along with permitted waste, CMD owner Michael Wood also illegally dumped mill sludge, drums of petroleum-based products and caustic chemicals at the site. He eventually was fined $4,000, and the site was capped and closed in 1993.

Already, the state has found elevated levels of arsenic immediately around the dump site. The chemical compound has been linked to skin cancer, lung cancer and bladder cancer.

Authorities are unsure if the arsenic, which has turned up in some wells in levels approaching federal drinking-water limits, is occurring naturally or leaching from the dump.

Repeating earlier statements, York said Tuesday she recently had spoken with the DEP and was told the landfill no longer poses a threat.

Some people, she was told, might have been harmed by breathing airborne pollution years ago. Residents have said waste repeatedly was burned at the dump, and children rode bicycles through the site before it was capped.

“We have no conclusive proof this landfill is causing anything at this point,” York said during Tuesday’s meeting.

York had invited real estate agents, but none attended. None returned calls to the Bangor Daily News later in the day.

Joining real estate appraisers at the session were officers from Skowhegan Savings Bank, Peoples Heritage Bank and Gardiner Savings Bank, along with representatives from the Maine State Housing Authority and the federal Rural Development program.

They all had much the same message: Only a finding of serious environmental problems would cause them to consider denying loans to Fairfield Center residents.

“We’re not going to redline any area” without such a finding, said Denton Ayers, who manages the Fairfield branch of Peoples Heritage. “It’s business as usual until we find out otherwise.”

Ziegler said he believes that, even if values eventually dip, they will recover as authorities tackle the issue. He’s seen it happen in other areas.

“Love Canal is a thriving, upscale subdivision now,” Ziegler said, referring to the area near Niagara Falls, N.Y., that once was among the most polluted sites in the country.

“I just can’t believe the state’s going to walk away from this, or that the town’s going to let them,” he said.